"Do I Dare / Disturb the Universe?"

Work Goes Faster When You Can Dance at Your Desk

Sadly, I am not doing that right now. But I AM listening to the fantastic new album from Panic! at the Disco. I think people are going to give them shit for this one, but I actually love it. It’s like they took a look inside my brain and said, “What can we make that will fulfill all of Liz’s guilty pleasures at once?” If only they had included free white chocolate with the download.

Dance music + Panic! = Liz dancing at her desk. Embarrassingly.

But I find it helps me get my thoughts in order, especially when I am writing. If music can make me feel something, I can latch onto that feeling and use it. For instance, Panic!’s “Time to Dance” from the first album gives me the shivers, along with a sensation of grandeur and adventure — the sense that, Oh god, I have to do something! The world is burning! Aaaaaahhhhhh. I feel very cool while staring out the car window listening to this song, pretending I am off saving some handsome gentleman or another…

Okay, nerdiness aside. This feeling — this full-to-the-brim, heart-stopping, roar of a feeling — allows me to get in the headspace of my characters, who sometimes do have to save their worlds. And this isn’t just for fantastical stories, either — the characters could be “saving” their own minds, or I could be ripping sanity away from them. If there is tension in a story — and there should be — music can help me express that tension by getting me in the character’s minds. Because whether you’re fighting dragons or trying to fix your toilet, there is stress in everything.

I hope that makes a little bit of sense and that I didn’t repeat myself too badly. If not, oh well, I’ll go back to dancing.